[Liverpool] Printing problem on Ubuntu 12.04

[Hakim Cassimally]

Hi all,
I've generally been quite impressed with how simple printing on Linux turns
out to be, but at the moment "it's not working".  I've investigated/asked
for help to the extent that I can, and can't get to the bottom of it, so
was wondering if you can help!

= My laptop =

  Thinkpad x60t running Ubuntu 12.04
  Linux chips 3.2.0-48-generic-pae #74-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jun 6 20:05:01 UTC
2013 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

= What happens =

I print a document from a GUI app.  This problem happens to x2 printers I
have in my list (DoES's networked Laser printer, and my dad's USB-connected
Laser printer), both of which I have successfully printed to before on this
machine.

Gnome's task bar shows a printer icon.  When I click on this I can see the
print queue for the printer I've printed to.  It starts off with Status =
"Processing: Not connected" and after a minute or so this changes to
"Held".  The document never prints.

== Check Cups status  ==

If I go to http://localhost:631/printers/DoESLaserJet-2605dn for example,
the State of the job is listed as

  "held since
Thu 04 Jul 2013 09:16:17 BST
"/usr/lib/cups/backend/hp failed""

This is pretty much as useful as "There was an error LOL"

== Check Logs ==

In /var/log/cups, the newly touched files are access_log which includes:

  localhost - - [04/Jul/2013:09:14:16 +0100] "POST
/printers/DoESLaserJet-2605dn HTTP/1.1" 200 59822 Print-Job successful-ok
  localhost - - [04/Jul/2013:09:14:21 +0100] "POST / HTTP/1.1" 200 342
Create-Printer-Subscription successful-ok
  localhost - - [04/Jul/2013:09:14:21 +0100] "POST / HTTP/1.1" 200 342
Create-Printer-Subscription successful-ok
  localhost - - [04/Jul/2013:09:16:08 +0100] "POST /jobs/ HTTP/1.1" 200 140
Cancel-Job successful-ok

page_log includes:
  DoESLaserJet-2605dn hakim 32 [04/Jul/2013:09:16:31 +0100] 1 1 - localhost
does anniversary invite.pdf - -

error_log only gets updated ~5 minutes later with:
  E [04/Jul/2013:09:21:40 +0100] [Job 32] Stopping unresponsive job!

BUT it does also have this from yesterday:

  E [03/Jul/2013:10:24:28 +0100] Unknown directive SystemGroup on line 16
of /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.
  W [03/Jul/2013:10:24:33 +0100] failed to CreateProfile:
org.freedesktop.ColorManager.AlreadyExists:profile id
'DoESLaser↪\Jet-2605dn-Gray..' already exists
(an

I've checked the error in
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cups/+bug/1088448 and it looks
like the SystemGroup entry has been removed from cups, but not from the
cupsd.conf file.  I've commented out the entry and re-started Cups, but
that didn't fix the problem.  Bah.

== Possible errors and debugging ==

At one point I thought that the problem might be with permissions in
/var/{log,spool}/cups and have done some chgrp, probably between lp and
lpadmin.  Nothing has fixed problem obviously.

=== Me cargo culting Things I Don't Understand ===

So, um, I have an SSD.  I cargo culted some stuffs about tuning for SSD,
including adding these lines to /etc/fstab

  tmpfs   /var/spool tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=1777   0  0
  tmpfs   /var/log   tmpfs   defaults,noatime,mode=0755   0  0

It occurred to me at some point that if Cups had created paths it needed on
*configuration* rather than init, then the next time I reboot, it might be
unhappy...

I've commented out those lines, rebooted, and attempted to rerun
configuration by running:

  sudo dpkg-reconfigure cups
  sudo dpkg-reconfigure dbus
  sudo dpkg-reconfigure hplip

Again, these don't seem to have helped.

= HAYULP? =

I'd be very grateful for any suggestions for what to do next!

Ta,
Hakim
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